by Daniela Castro, Teams Management at Xtendo Group
Much is said about the adaptability of the industries of the Retail sector. It is very likely that the landscape of the sector will be very different in a long time and sustaining flexibility will be one of the permanent primary factors for retailers. In this article we will focus on the key aspects of the sector, to understand how to carry out an agile and flexible proposal.
Knowing the importance for the Retail sector to put the needs of its customers at the center of its strategies, it is valid to consider that this reasoning is equally important when designing and adapting all the tactics that respond to demand, and that increasingly demand agility and flexibility in their treatment; for example, the implementation of an effective logistics solution.
The current retail scenario
The formidable enthronement of the Internet and modern technologies has completely rotated the board of the sector. This impacts both distributors, merchants, demanders, platforms, and other active components of Retail.
We can verify that the transformations are based on the conversion of the relationship with customers / consumers. They must adjust to the various platforms, tactics, distribution models and roadmaps according to the new sales channels. Both innovative and traditional channels, both must adapt to new technological tools to give maximum results and be more attractive and effective.
Consequently, it is essential for the Retail company to have absolute certainty about the following factors: sales channels, weaknesses, strengths, expectations, opportunities, levels and degrees of relationship between retailer and customers.
The flexibility boom
After the pandemic, companies shored up their sales flows decisively after going through very thorny months with a string of red numbers and a lavish accumulation of inventory, which ended up becoming an almost chimerical challenge to combat.
From now on, companies will have to adapt to sustain greater inventory clearances depending on the inclusion of uncertainty risks in sales estimates. Along with the maximum flexibility of supply chains, to be able to respond more quickly to the dizzying changes of environment.
Organizational structure is key
Speed is always well regarded in the retail industry and even more so in an open global financial crisis. Certainly, it is very likely that the panorama of the sector does not emit differentiating signals to the events, where maintaining agility becomes a permanent essential factor for retailers.
A rigid and mechanical structure cannot be molded and fails when challenges arise; A flexible organization responds to change by growing and using this experience to maximize its competitiveness.
The diagnosis analyzed in a survey by The Economist, shows that organizational agility has enormous value for long-term digital growth. 90% of the executives questioned mentioned that Retail is a decisive sector for the success of entities based on organizational agility behaviors.
According to Workday, there are 5 elementary behaviors for organizational agility, a number that was obtained from the testimonies provided by groups of business managers who weigh agility to obtain a favorable online increase. These are:
- Continuous planning: In a versatile market where daily movements are verified, it is clear that a company cannot afford to wait months to find out if a good or service is successful. To these ends, organizational agility involves permanent and real-time planning in the heads of executives. Only in this way will they verify greater instantaneity and dynamisms necessary to captivate favorably.
- Fast structures: The achievement of a fleeting response will depend on the company having efficient, fast and malleable machinery that allows a good organization -at the level of resources and human capital-, adjustable to the prevailing needs.
- Training: Technological development has caused several of the companies’ assets to come from sectors that, long ago, did not exist. Training to get the most out of these assets has become a competitive differential.
- Empowerment to make appropriate decisions: According to the Workday study, 80% of the most proactive leaders in organizational agility have access to transcendental data compared to 20% of managers most behind in this prerogative. Leadership in the dynamic focus of events requires empowering workers and democratizing decision-making, since they are the ones who carry out the execution of the plans designed by the leadership.
- Control: For organizational agility to be a complete system, control and evaluation cannot be lacking.
Without permanent, accurate and concrete measurements, it takes a long time for the company to understand the collision of any measurement. In such a changing scenario, any inadvertent distortion has substantial as well as fatal effects for the company.
All these elements correctly analyzed and deployed in practice can bring us closer to a complete picture and a powerful solution to warn the demand of users and consumers and help us evolve in many key aspects.
